Knife crime: ‘We have to get a grip on it’
10 October 2022
West Midlands Police Federation chair Rich Cooke has called for a tougher response to knife crime and urged politicians to prioritise making Britain's streets safer.
Rich was speaking after three people were stabbed when they tried stop a phone snatch robbery in central London last week.
A group of two or three masked knifemen attacked a pedestrian in Bishopsgate on Thursday morning and members of the public suffered stab wounds when they tried to intervene.
Speaking on Jeremy Kyle’s Talk TV breakfast show, Rich said a more visible police presence may have prevented the attack.
He said: “You have to ask yourself, if there was more of a visible presence of officers in communities and on the streets of the City of London, our capital, would this have actually happened?
“If you go to somewhere like New York, with the presence of police there, would it have happened in a city like that?
“We have got to get back to having that visible police presence but it is not going to be cheap.”
Rich said policing had to deliver a stronger response to street crime and also called for maximum sentences to be imposed on offenders convicted of carrying a knife.
“We need to be much stronger as a police force,” he said.
“About 10 years ago there was a big push within the criminal justice system and policing to keep young people out of custody and some people may say quite rightly so.
“When we think about knife crime, a lot of the individuals who commit this are young people, 10 to 17-year-olds and, of course, we don't want them in custody.
“But when we are talking about really serious offences, like knife carrying and violence and children being killed, we have to start putting decent members of the public first.”
Rich said tackling street violence and knife crime involved short-term and long-term strategies.
He said: “The long-term solution is definitely communicating out into the communities and putting that social side into place, addressing the root causes.
“However, in the short run, how are we going to save lives today and tomorrow? It is about using our powers unapologetically - stop and search, Section 60s when we have an incident.
“We have inspectors who are unfortunately reluctant to use those powers because of the tacit messaging from leadership and from Government over the past few years.
“None of the politicians I have seen are willing to prioritise getting the streets back back under control.
“But we have to get a grip on it and it is about tough, unapologetic police tactics and sentencing that has to fit the gravity of these offences because if you carry a knife you are a potential killer and we have got to start treating them in that way.”
